Aaaannnddd I'mmm baccckkk!!!!

Hello all!

A hearty New year to you all!
I realise I'm a little behind the times with this post, mainly because I spent my Christmas holidays revising for mock exams, the first of which I had at 9am on the first day back - how cruel is that?!

How I looked

How I felt

Anyway, I had my final mock yesterday and I thought it was a breeze, although that probably means I completely fluffed up!
So I thought I'd try and squeeze a post in between my psychology homework and my biology homework.
On the subject of school, I'm really enjoying my lessons this year, much more so than in year 12 at AS, I'm finding biology much easier, although I'm glad we finally finished Unit 4 last week - no more photosynthesis! I'm telling you, I've studied photosynthesis every year since year 4 - I'm extremely bored of it! Anyway, Unit 5 of AQA Biology is really cool - there's DNA technology and genes and the nervous system, and all the cool human stuff, much better than plants IMO!

As for psychology, there were four options for OCR, of which two must be studied: Forensic, Health, Education, Sport.
My school does Forensic (as we offer law at GCSE) and Sport (because we're a sports and technology thingy - apparently). Personally I'd prefer education over Sport, but we don't start that section until next week so I'm not going to make my mind up yet! The other unit comprises of approaches and perspectives and evaluation, but we also have a section in the exam where we have to plan our own practical study based on the criteria we're given - I really enjoy this bit, hence why I liked yesterday's exam!

And finally, OCR B History (I dropped geography - I don't like the human side and that was all A2 consisted of). This year we study British imperialism with one teacher, 3 lessons a week, and have a controlled assessment in May (a really nice exam as long as you are properly prepared!) and with the other teacher we are doing coursework 1 lesson a week - "personal study" on the significance of a topic of our own choosing. I was originally going to do Pioneering Palaeontologists, but my research told me that would be extremely difficult in the time-frame, so I chose something I am even more passionate about - Scouts. My question is: "How significant was the birth of Scouting?" I've completed my first full-draft and am now changing bits as necessary, although I am over the 3000 word limit so I need to do some cutting down. There are 6 other students in my class and their topics are: The Aztecs, Leni Riefenstahl, The French Renaissance, Something to do with Poland, and Karl Marx.

I am also doing an EPQ (Extended project qualification) for AQA, as you will know if you have read my blog before. I was originally going to do it on settlement structures and build models, but I was advised against this and have instead decided to ask "Have human needs changed, and how has this affected our lifestyle?"
I'm actually quite enjoying this, but I am panicking about getting it completed to an A grade standard, I know that I'm well ahead of my classmates as we have just been told to begin writing and to have 3000 words by the 29th January - I'm curently on 2,700 while most haven't yet begun, however, I have a tendency to write what's in my head and am then unable to work out what order I should place it in. I follow the principle of "Don't get it right, get it writ", however, I often lose motivation to then get it "right" after its been "writ". I am getting better though and I'm going to spend Saturday on my EPQ and Sunday on the bits of homework that I should be doing as I write this post.

I think that'll do for school, I spend enough time with school work as it is, without writing about it endlessly!
I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to in 2014, perhaps that will help motivate me to finish this homework...

1. Turning 18 and going to the Warner Bros studio tour with my best friend - I will buy EVERYTHING!
2.Getting my EPQ done and dusted by March 26th - more free time!
3.Having my History coursework done by Easter - more revision time!
4.Having my history exam done by the second week of May - Only two subjects left!
6. Super long summer holiday!
5. Spending a long weekend with my oldest friend camping while everyone else is at prom - my logic was this - £35 for one night I won't enjoy with a bunch of people I don't like and also have to get a dress Vs £19 for 3 days with my oldest friend doing something we both love, camping by a beautiful lake before I leave for Uni......It was a pretty easy decision really. This is also instead of spending a fortune going to Marbella or somewhere with my friends who will spend the whole week in the hotel pool. I like adventure.

6.Results day - This may seem weird because it could make or break my future, but my thinking is, my fate is decided on the day of my last exam, that means I can't change my results and the atmosphere on results day is pretty electric!
7. Moving to Uni - hopefully! I'm really looking forward to packing, is that weird?

I finally watched Toy story this Christmas and it made me want to take all my toys with me to Uni! Of course, anyone that has ever seen my room will understand that that will be impossible, so I don't doubt there will be many moments like this:

I told you earlier I spent the whole of the holidays revising - that wasn't strictly true - for the days before Christmas, up until Christmas eve, I was doing homework and sorting out my stuff in the attic - having a proper clear out, I'm not yet finished though so I'm continuing with that on Sunday if I get all my work done.
I also tried my hand at some new Jewellery, and I'm really happy with how it all turned out!
I'm so proud of the snowman earrings, but they took aaaages to make, I had to have a massage after each completion because I was in agony!

Aren't these snowman earrings adorable! I made a pair for myself to wear on Xmas day! £4 a pair 

My new rubber band bracelets - £3 for top two, £2 for third one, £1 for bottom.

£1 each

How did I forget this - who saw the new series of Sherlock?! I loved it! The second episode had me in stitches, and the final one was brilliant! I do think Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent in the role, and the way he can pretend to show emotion and then immediately be nonchalant is brilliant! I'm halfway through reading Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of The Baskervilles and I'm really enjoying it! I even managed to quote it in my History mock (something about free trade), which was pretty cool.

Anyhoo, I think that's a pretty good round-up of everything since my last post, and I should probably get on with this biology homework - I seem to have "inherited" procrastination from my Dad. See what I did there? eh?!

Alons-Y!

So much to do, so little money!

Well, here we are, November the 17th, 5 weeks and 3 days until christmas and I have bought a total of 2 christmas presents! I just don't know what to get anyone this year, and I spent most of my money on a school trip last week, trains to London are soooo expensive, and that's with a 16-25 railcard discount!
And it's not just christmas, there's so many books i'd like for my history coursework and my EPQ, but I can't get them from any libraries and it's just so expensive to buy them all, plus, I'm still hoping to go to Australia with BOLD EARTH this summer before going to university, that's certainly going to set me back a bit!
I have used Swagbucks for a while now and bought my dad's christmas presents using an amazon giftcard I earned last year, unfortunately I forgot about the site until recently and am now aiming to get another 800SB in time to get some presents! It'd be great if you guys would sign up using my referral link: swagbucks.com/refer/Jodz
Swagbucks is a site where you conduct searches (like google - it uses goggle results), complete surveys, polls, watch videos, play games etc. to gain points "Swagbucks", these points can then be redeemed for items, only giftcards in the UK but there's a wide selection, and I think other items as well as giftcards can be redeemed in the USA. It's a great way of getting Xmas presents and no doubt i'll be using it to partially fund my university life!

Now, before anyone starts saying "get a job", I spent the whole of year 12 looking for a job, and when it looked like I had one, the job was given to an incompetent girl in the year below me, obviously because they were cheaper to employ, but I was a bit miffed.
Anyway, I've been working hard with my business this year and I can't really do that and have a job as I use my weekends for it.
Also, I struggled a lot with school last year, and this year I'm barely keeping above the water in biology, I don't want to compromise my university place for a bit of extra cash, especially now that I've heard back from all 5 choices in the space of 4 weeks (record time!).

Anyway, moving away from money, I've been considering going geocaching with a friend sometime soon, we had a brilliant adventure once just going into town, and I think geocaching would be even more fun! I've only done it once with explorers, and we never found anything (Well, it was pitch black at 10pm) so I'd love to have another go!
I think i'll see what my homework's like next week and maybe go next saturday, it looks so much fun!

A typical geocache full of swaps

Anyway, I've been homework-ing all day and now i'm finally done, I'm going to have some quality Primeval time, and then Doctor who at 7:30!

Alons-y!

Hello all

Hello all,
It's been a while, I've been trying to get ahead at school this year to improve my predicted grades for UCAS.
I thought I'd give you guys a couple more daily routine thingamy bobs - one for Wednesday's, as i dont usually go home till 10pm and one for Saturday's.

So Wednesday, I'll use today but I'll also add a bit in that usually happens but didn't today.

6:15 - 6:50 get up, eat, dressed etc.
6:50-8 - do homework/ surf the net.
8-8:20 - dad drives me to school.
8:20-8:45 - chill in study room/ work
8:45-9 - form
9-10 - wrote questionnaire and planned psychology answer for tomorrows assessment
10-11 - watch sea of souls & read history chapter 2
11-11:20 - break
11:20-1:20 - double history lesson
1:20-2 - lunch
2-2:25 - form/ assembly on open evening
2:25-3:25 - EPQ lesson - found some great websites
3:24-3:45 - walked back to nans
3:45-5 - made biology notes
5- 6 - was cool and watched Lizzie McGuire and my parents are aliens & had dinner.
6-7:45 (usually go to help out at cubs but it wasn't on tonight due to splash night at the weekend) dad picked me up and I did a lil bit of homework, at 7:45 we left for explorers.
8:15-10 - explorers, tonight was problem solving activities with the main aim of escaping prison (hence the activity name 'jailbreak) and winning chocolate. My team didn't win, but we did solve most of the problems. Dad picked me up at 10.
10:30 - 11 watched frasier and went to bed.






Typical Saturday (not this week as I'm working, I had Friday off school so I'll use that as an example):

9-9:30 - get up,dressed, eat
9:30- 10 - finish off homework - most is usually done by Friday evenings.
10-10:30 - type up history mind map we made in class.
10:30-11 - rewrite notes neatly from Friday.
11-11:15 - biology reading ahead notes
11:15-11:30 - psychology reading ahead notes
11:30-12 - history reading ahead notes
12-12:30 - EPQ research
12:30-1 - history coursework (the exam board found a potential problem with my proposal regarding balance, but I came up with a cunning plan, emailed my teacher and it's all sorted!)
1-5 - jewellery making
5-6 - surf net
6-6:30 - dinner
6:30-7 - shower
7-10:30 - tv


I'm sure that was thrilling reading, so I'll think of something else to write about :')

Actually, while I was "working" at the weekend (trying to sell my jewellery at a shopping village we hire a display stand from), I actually made £13 on saturday, and £8 on Sunday - 3 bracelets and 3 necklaces - that's the first time I've sold anything while I've been there! Pretty chuffed - that's enough for one fresher's event next year, now for the money to live on and Bob's your uncle!
I was also approached by a woman who has recently opened up a handcrafted jewellery village and is very eager for me to be the final seller, the footfall should be much larger there so hopefully I'll make at least a small profit (it's £5 a week for the space) and I'm going to try and get my website finished and then utilize social media and I might be pushing my products on here as well haha, I'll upload a few examples now actually, I have a lot more stock however, and some cool new stuff I haven't photographed yet. I also make keyrings that i'll be happy to upload if you wish. If you're interested in anything, or are looking for for something specific that I may be able to produce, comment below or email me at j.l-smith@outlook.com - i'll be happy to answer any questions or hear of any ideas/inspiration you internetters may be able to offer me!

Just a fraction of the earring collection

A small number of the necklaces

Personalised braceletes

I went to Liverpool's open day the other day - that was one loooong drive, and I was totally in love, the first accomodation I saw was brilliant, brand new, and so cheap! Then we wandered round the campus which I loved, then went to the subject talk, with no more than 4 others, the lecturer made me even more excited, I REALLY hope I get in! I should get my predicted grades soon so I really hope they're high enough and not based on AS results (my 2nd papers for each exam dragged my grades down cause I was sooo I'll, I don't know how I even passed, pretty sure I was writing gobbledygook.) I KNOW I could get straight A's if I worked as hard as I am now, although that may not be possible as the year progresses, but I do know I can get the offer grades, of only my teachers can see that too!

I'm off now to get sorted for school.

Alonz-y!

Year 13 update

Hello all,

You may remember that towards the end of August I was preparing for heading back to school after the summer holidays, to begin by final year of school, I thought i'd update you on how the last week has gone.

School began on wednesday 4th September for years 7,12 and 13, with the rest of the school coming back on the Thursday.
This was  to give the newbies a chance to settle into high school and sixth form, Year 13 had to go in as we were running the induction day with the year 12s and we are encouraged to make friends cross both year groups, rather than only in our own.

The induction day consisted of making balloon chairs, spiders web and other team building activities.

My teams balloon chair

After the activities we had an assembly and got to go home at 3pm.

In the 5 days since however, I have had lessons each day, although I do have many more frees now as I have dropped geography this year, so I will only be doing Biology, Psychology and History this year.

On top of the extra study time, my dad is currently planning my own little study so that I can utilise my study time at home more effectivley as my room at the moment is too small for me to be organised.

When it is finally completed, I will upload some before and after pictures.

For now however, it is getting late and I have some bracelet commisions to complete before the day is out so I should get a shower and do them before I settle down in front of the TV. 

I will be posting an in-depth daily routine one of these days to show you how I organise my school work, as well as having that all important "me time", and maybe it will help one of you guys!

Alons-y!

A morning of reflection

Hello all.

For some reason I spent this morning feeling a little reminiscent. So much so that I wound up making some collages that I will now share with you. If, by any chance, you actually happen to follow my little blog (I thank you greatly), I thought you might like to get a little picture of my life from before I entered the world of blogging.
The pictures have a range of 1997 right up to 2013, although I am lacking quite a few years as both my PC and my external hard drive died a while back and I lost most of my pictures, I am slowly rebuilding the catalogue from Facebook though - thank god I have such a tendency to upload pictures from trips!
Anyway, here's the collage named "Then & Now"



























In the first picture I'm sitting with my cousin, I lived with my aunt for a while after my mothers death so my dad could work without having to fork out for child are, and to give him a chance to grieve without me being a pain, I kid, I was actually very good as a baby, Dad says I barely cried, just sat quietly and as a toddler I never threw tantrums, just looked at books or played on my own, maybe being an only child I just didn't develop that arguing streak haha!

The second picture is my nursery picture, taken when I was 3 (everyone in my psychology class estimated my age to be 9...either they were VERY baby faced at 9, or I was very mature at 3....) after a trip to Disneyland Florida - I'm wearing a mickey mouse top. :)

The 3rd picture was taken at the end of year 2, aged 7, before making our way to year 3, in the scariest part of the school - JUNIOR SCHOOL!! (at this point, my primary school was a JMI school, we later changed to a primary.)

And finally the 4th picture, taken in my friends garden just before going to our year 11 prom, it was an end of an era, and a very enjoyable evening.




I said my primary school used to be a JMI (Junior mixed Infants), well here are some pictures from the day we changed to primary. A few months earlier us pupils had taken a vote on whether we should be called community or primary, it was fairly unanimous that we should be primary.

On the day everyone had either a green or yellow balloon (school colours), the head teacher called stansted airport to tell them there'd be quite a few balloons in the flight path that day, and we let them go in the ceremony. Then the 2 oldest and youngest pupils (unfortunately i was in year 5 so a year too young for this honour) cut the ribbon to declare us officially open. Then we all received bookmarks and had cake.


This next picture is a combination from my years at secondary school:

In the first picture I have a pair of penguin feet sticking out of my blouse while in RM (resistant materials), my friend found it so amusing that a picture had to be taken - just look at my enthusiasm!
The second picture is a whole group photo from the last day of year 9, how we've shrunk since then!
Then we have my friend, surrounded by books, on a day of maths a geography revision.
And finally, all dressed up for the year 11 prom. :)


This collaboration is from a variety of school trips, the first is me with my best buddy on arrival at mount Vesuvius in Italy in year 9, next we have the rewards trip in year 10 - a trip to the Doctor Who experience in Olympia, London. The next two are from year 12, the first to New York in February and the following to Birmingham for Geography in Novemeber.

And now for the final collaboration, a selection of my favourite moments.

We have a trip to Center Parcs with my (ex) boyfriend in 2011, it was lovely to have a family holiday, without my own family haha! Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but our holidays have only once in 17 years been an actual holiday, rather than work.

Then we have the olympics, for which we scored tickets to (and the paralympics), followed by seeing Michael Mcintyre live, although I had a very painful neck at the time, so had to sit on the end of the row and lean out sideways to see him!

Then we have my 17th birthday at the Natural History museum with 2 of my friends and my new (ex) boyfriend, I do love dinosaurs y'see...
And finally, two of my buddies on the weekend camp nearly three weeks ago, it was a brilliant weekend. No doubt i'll have a lot more happy camping memories when I get back from the summer camp to Lochearnhead in Scotland. :)



I said I liked to read, well, here's the proof - I was an early reader, apparently!

Or maybe I just wondered what was on TV

Strangely enough, I still have this book lying around somewhere!

Well, that's all for now, I broke up from school for the summer today and I'm going to make the most of it by getting on with my holiday work outside before I go to Scotland, knowing my luck, it'll snow while I'm there haha!

Alons-y!

Topic 8.1

Structure of DNA

Nucleotide structure

Individual nucleotides of DNA are made up of:

• Sugar – Deoxyribose
• Phosphate group
• Organic base

Single-ring bases – Cytosine (C) and Thymine (T)

          OR

Double-ring bases – Adenine (A) and Guanine (G)

T=A

C=G

=Hydrogen bonds

 

                             

*These three components are combined as a result of condensation reactions to give a mononucleotide.

-Two mononucleotides may combine as a result of a condensation reaction between the deoxyribose sugar of one mononucleotide and the phosphate group of another. This new structure is a dinucleotide.

-A long chain of mononucleotides is a polynucleotide.

-It is not just DNA that contains nucleotides.

DNA structure

-In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick worked out the structure of DNA following Rosalind Franklin’s work on X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA.

-DNA is made up of two strands of nucleotides (polynucleotides).

-Each starnd is extremely long and joined together by hydrogen bonds formed between certain bases.

-Simply: Ladder – phosphate and deoxyribose molecules alternate to form the uprights and organic bases pair together to form the rungs.

 

The double helix

-The ladder-like arrangement of the two polynucleotide chains is twisted.

-The uprights of phosphate and deoxyribose wind around each other to form a double helix.

-They form the structural backbone of the DNA molecule.

-For each complete turn of the helix, there are ten base pairs.

Function of DNA

-DNA is the hereditary material responsible for passing genetic information from cell to cell and generation to generation.

-There are around 3.2 billion base pairs in DNA of a typical mammalian cell.

  This means there is an almost infinite variety of sequences of bases on the length of a DNA molecule, providing immense variety in living organisms.

How DNA molecule is adapted to its functions:

• Very stable and can pass between generations without change.
• Two separate strands, joined with only hydrogen bonds, allowing the to separate during DNA replication and protein synthesis.
• Extremely large molecule, therefore carries an immense amount of genetic information.
• Having base pairs within the helical cylinder of deoxyribose-phosphate backbone, genetic information is protected from being corrupted by outside chemical and physical forces.
• The function of DNA depends on the sequence of the base pairs it posseses.

Decisions, decisions....

Well, today was a day full of decisions: "Do I take up the EPQ or not?", "Do I buy chips tomorrow, or save my money?", "Which bus stop should I go to?", "Should I do a revision post or save it for tomorrow?".

In case you are wondering, I haven't yet made a decision on EPQ, I'm saving my money, I went to the second bus stop and i'm saving the revision post for tomorrow.

I really like the idea of the EPQ, but i'm having diffiulty choosing a topic, my intesets include psychology, dinosaurs and scouts....is there any way I could combine those? "Do scouts have a similar cognitive ability to that of dinosaurs?" I think that'd be pretty difficult to research somehow....

I've also been improving greatly at my time management recently (hence why I have time to write this blog), I read my textbooks on the bus and do as much homework as I can in the mornings before school - I work best between 7 and 10am for some reason, that generally leaves me with quite a few frees, which I use to do revision in the library, and sometimes I do some more work for 20 minutes after school as my bus doesn't arrive till around 4pm. This means that while I do still do work at home, my load is lighter and I can relax a little more, it's taken me 6 months to get into this routine!

Obviously, this time will decrease once I start being a young leader, and i'm planning a lot of charity events at school, but I think i'll cope, just about.

We had a speaker come into school today about independent living, it got me thinking about having my own bedroom again if and when I go to Uni - I live in a one-bedroom house and after 3 years of having the bedroom and my parents having a pull down bed in the living room, I got kicked into the attic, but we discovered that it's impossible to sleep up there in winter so i now sleep on a tiny mesanine floor, which is too small for me to do my work effectivey as it's impossible to keep tidy, but downstairs is too noisy.

Hopefully, my room at uni will look less like this:



My old room - messy

And more like this:

Note the big window - lots of light!

Not that i'm excited to have more independence or anything....
Just as a heads up, I won't be posting friday or saturday as i'm away, I may post on sunday though.
I shall probably do homework friday evening till around 10pm, then watch a film/play on xbox.
Then saturday I'll get up at 8/9 depending on whether I have any homework left, I'll work till around 11, either on homework or revision, or both (I'm such a model student...) and then I'll probably run into town to buy a couple of birthday presents, get back and settle down to make some bracelets for the afternoon, perhaps meet up with a friend, and watch a DVD in the evening while pigging out on mini poppadoms, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chocolate and scotch eggs.
Much the same will follow on sunday, minus the DVD and pigging out, and if the weather is ok, i'll nip down the tennis courts to burn off all those calories from the night before, and get picked up around 4, arriving home by 4:30pm.
This is generally how a weekend spent at my nans is spent, I quite enjoy them, but I'll probably be staying less often now as work mounts up and I need the internet over the weekend.

Off now to get ready for explorers - 3 course meal to be cooked on a makeshift wood-burning stove! I'l ttry and get some pictures. :)

Alons-y. x